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In September last year, Anton was found dead next to a garbage room in Enskede, south of Stockholm. As DN previously reported, it was more than a year before the family received the death notice, as the police identification dragged on.
Anton’s addiction eventually took his life.
His mother and sister are deeply disappointed in the addiction care. Over the years, they have felt alone in their fight for Anton to recover and they have not known who to turn for help. They wish someone had sat like a spider in a web and developed a plan of action and kept in contact with family members. They are particularly critical of the fact that Anton was not forcibly admitted to a treatment home when he was released from the hospital after being treated for blood poisoning in early 2019.They also believe that his social secretary should have called him. when it deviated from the last supported accommodation.
By last They think that health should be responsible for substance abuse care rather than municipalities.
– If you have anorexia, you abuse your body and then end up in healthcare, but if you abuse drugs, it ends up in the social services office. These are chemicals that you put into your body, says the sister.
Anton’s mother shows a photo of her son.
Photo: Alexander Mahmoud
Annica Bergström, vice president of the Parents’ Association Against Drugs in Greater Stockholm, which offers counseling and courses to relatives, is not surprised when she hears the family’s story. His experience is that it is much less common for family members to feel that they are receiving good help than the other way around.
“Unfortunately, many people feel like they are struggling and struggling,” she says.
A lot of experience that the authorities do not cooperate with each other, so the abuser ends up in a kind of element 22.
– Often you start to abuse because you feel very bad, but psychiatry does not take care of you but tells you that you must first free yourself of your addiction. And if you go to the municipality, they tell you that you must be registered with a psychiatrist to help you with your condition.
You are often put into a treatment home for three months straight, and when those months have passed, the great work begins. Not many people can be drug free without aftercare.
According to Annica Bergström, she sometimes helps with occasional reports of concern to get social services to act, often requiring multiple people, the police and the ambulance to sound the alarm. If the person is of legal age, everything is based on the person voluntarily seeking help at the same time that the family members do not have the right to transparency. It’s also difficult to get a place in a treatment home, and even if the person is cared for, there is often a lack of follow-up and aftercare, she says.
– You are often put into a treatment home for three months in a row and when those months have passed, the great work begins. Not many people can be drug free without aftercare.
Aftercare can, for example take place in assisted living centers, which will function as a closure to ordinary life, and through follow-up with meetings in outpatient care.
– Some family members think it is okay with treatment homes and assisted living, because the person there has the support of other like-minded people who know what they are going through. Others think they are like a buffet for drug addicts and crime.
Annica Bergström is Vice President of the Parents Against Drugs Association in Greater Stockholm.
Photo: Private
Like Anton’s mother and sister, the association believes that medical care should come first.
– Yes, because it is an addictive disease.
Jessica Hellberg, Unit Manager in the social administration of the city of Stockholm, I cannot comment specifically on Anton, but he says that the basis of the Social Services Act is that all efforts must be voluntary for adults. His image is that it is not difficult to get a place in a treatment house.
– But first maybe I should have tried outpatient care. Most districts have their own outpatient care with therapists in different programs, she says.
According to Jessica Hellberg, all efforts are individualized. Individuals can request accommodation in a homestay or training and experimental apartment with access to supportive measures, if they cannot live in supported accommodation. The city of Stockholm can also grant so-called case management, which involves the coordination of care and support measures. However, social workers often do not call people who stray from supported housing unless there are special reasons.
– It’s a voluntary effort.
When it comes to psychiatry They have a hard time deciding on mandatory care, says Johan Frank, Beroendecentrum Stockholm’s chief operating officer in the Stockholm Region.
– Being addicted to drugs is not in itself a criterion to receive compulsory care, in principle you have to be close to death or harm others, he says.
In June, the government designated an investigation to see how to coordinate efforts for people who have an addiction / dependency and a psychiatric diagnosis. A clear majority of all EU countries have assumed primary responsibility for healthcare, but not Sweden.
Former government psychiatry coordinator Anders Printz, who will now lead the investigation, will present his proposals by November 30, 2021, stating that care is not working today.
– People end up between the chairs and fall ill with a fatal outcome. It’s common for psychiatry to set rules that you must have been drug-free for a certain period of time to receive interventions, while addiction care believes they must first get help from psychiatry, he says.
Anders Printz is the head of the Chancellery of the Swedish Medical Association and is in charge of the government investigation.
Photo: Ulf Huett / Vårdförbundet
The investigation will decide whether municipalities and regions should continue to share responsibility or meet with a single director. At the same time, Anders Printz believes that you may have to think of completely new things and also create a new integrated business for the most vulnerable.
No matter how it turns out, the need is great, he says.
– These people are often treated by society with condemning attitudes and often do not receive the care they need.
Footnote: The Parents’ Association Against Drugs in Greater Stockholm receives a grant from the City of Stockholm. Actually, Anton has a different name: the family wants to remain anonymous. It has been buried since the text was written.
Read more: Nobody asks about the man in the cold room.
